If you're a football fan, you've probably played fantasy football or at least know someone who has…
If you're a football fan, you've probably played fantasy football or at least know someone who has. Waiting to see how your chosen players perform adds to the excitement of watching games, but that anticipation can quickly turn into heartburn if players don't perform well. The same goes for building an app development team – it will be a punch in the gut if the people you chose aren't getting the job done.
One of the keys to good software project management is assigning the right people to the right tasks. In a utopia, this is easy because you have the best talent in-house and at your disposal. Back in the real world, this is never the case. If you're lucky, you might have some of the talent you need on your team. In this case, you can take advantage of staff augmentation to quickly fill out your team with the extra specialized talent you need. However, if you're facing a job where your in-house experience is minimal, your best bet is to outsource the entire project and avoid the pitfalls that can come with trying to build an app development team yourself.
Why it's hard to build an app development team
If your goals are a) to have a highly skilled team that works well together to resolve problems quickly; and b) deliver a great product to your client on time, so putting together an in-house team can be quite a challenge. Let's take a look at some of the reasons.
Pitfalls in app development team selection
Lack of tools or language skills
One problem that will stop you from taking off is not having software engineers who have experience with the tools and/or language needed for the project. For some long-term custom development projects, acquisition and learning curves can be tolerated; however, that time could be better spent resolving the inevitable issues that will arise throughout the project.
Need to use employees in unfamiliar roles
Although you may have enough staff available, they may not have the necessary range of skills, meaning some would have to fill unfamiliar roles.
Need to create ad-hoc teams
Closely related to placing employees in roles that don't align with their experience is the need to bring people from different teams together into an ad-hoc unit. This type of arrangement can be fraught with trust and communication drawbacks that can undermine efficiency.
Lack of team bandwidth for the project
Another confusion that can occur is having a previously scheduled team available to start another project before they could finish the one that needs staffing. If asking for extensions is something you enjoy doing or think your customers would love, perhaps this can be handled internally. However, both customer satisfaction could be achieved through outsourcing.
Groupthink
An often overlooked phenomenon that can paralyze a team – especially if they are under similar stresses and work in the same environment is groupthink – where all members approach problems in a similar way, resulting in a single way of thinking that impedes creativity .
The above list is not exhaustive. Still, we can see that there are a number of issues that could hinder your efforts to build an in-house app development team. Fortunately, there is an alternative that can relieve you of the burden.
How about outsourcing an application development team?
If building an app development team in-house isn't the best option, then what is? How about increasing the team or hiring only the new staff that the project requires? Yes, this is an option and in some cases it may be the best option. For example, if the project signals company growth and new talent is needed in the future. If that's not right, you may want to explore how outsourcing improves software delivery including the advantages of building your application development team shown below.
Advantages of outsourcing app development team
Top talent based on project needs
Outsourcing teams are project-specific, which means your team will possess the necessary tools and coding language skills.
Specialized and experienced team
Team members will not only have the necessary skill set but will also take on roles and responsibilities.
Greater agility
The best software development is agile, where communication between members (and company personnel when necessary) is transparent and virtually instantaneous. The best outsourcing companies can provide this level of development.
No scheduling conflicts
Outsourcing teams are assembled for specific projects. You can be assured that the team is dedicated and will remain intact until the project is completed.
Day to day management
In addition to engineers performing daily project tasks, your outsourcing team can also include project management, freeing you to focus on other projects or company business.
